Run Bad, Diet Good – Vegan Day 9

Sick again. This January has not been good to me and my family. All of our traveling is probably to blame, but pretty much everyone we know is sick too. It’s been a month of different sicknesses and we’re really ready for it to be over!

Needless to say, it hasn’t been a great time to start my first week at being Vegan and my first week bad into serious run & strength training. But I didn’t let being SUPER SICK stop me from doing it! … well, not entirely.

view from Sunday’s run

I wasn’t exactly the vegan poster child for healthy, nutritious eating this week (guess what, Coke Life and kettle corn is vegan and goes great with cold medicine) but at least I kept it up. I know I said I started this 30 Day Vegan Challenge to get myself to eat more fruits and vegetables, but this first week, being sick and all, I was making a lot of instant soup mixes. They were all vegan of course, but heavy on sodium and rice noodles. My vegetables came in the form of dips to go with my vegan chips (walnut beet dip, carrot cashew pate, etc). Soooo chips and dip… See what I mean? But I have since stocked the fridge with a lot more veggies and have already started eating way more of the nutritious vegan options.

cold beach and cold running!

Now the running… eh, it was ok. I ran 18 miles total this week, which is WAY less than I planned but, considering how sick I’ve been, it’s amazing. I forced myself out the door on Sunday, even though I felt terrible. Silly me, I still thought I could do a 10-13 mile long run (10 if I felt really bad, cuz, duh, I could at LEAST do 10 right??). Um, no. After a mile I thought I was going to die or cough up a lung. But I was determined to at least do 6! Decided to run down the 1 mile alligator path again too, because I saw a walker on the path (rare) and thought, well if the alligators didn’t eat her then maybe I’ll be good? I also thought at least if she heard me scream during an alligator attack, there was one person who could call 911. Anyway, I ran 6 painful miles, which were ok during the run bit, but when I stopped I felt like my body completely shut down on me. Forget recovery eating. I was just trying not to throw up. It was not a good night.

don’t let this section of the path fool you, it gets sketchy once you get farther into it… which is why no pictures from THAT section!

I’m still quite sick today but I’m really proud of getting to Day 9 of this challenge. I’ve never done that before. Special thank you to all of you who have written support! It really helps to hear your stories! I know I’m eating far healthier than I did before and I know this will ultimately help my running.

Oh and I recently bought these 3 books! – two cookbooks and one running + weight loss book. Thug Kitchen, Thug Kitchen Party Grub, and Run to Lose. I am really excited to finish reading all of them. For those of you who don’t know, the Thug Kitchen duo are vegan food bloggers who ended up putting out a really successful cookbooks.

I had seen the first Thug book a long time ago but the language had been a bit distracting. Kind of too much swearing and trying too hard? And this is coming from someone (me) who swears like a sailor! (which is a really archaic expression b/c NO sailor I have ever met swears as bad as the rest of the services!) But then I saw their Thug Kitchen Party Grub cookbook (“For Social Mother-F*ckers!” — their words not mine!) and it made me laugh and was exactly what I was looking for when going vegan – party food! I wanted fun foods for the weekend too and those meals you can look forward to after a long run. I knew I needed those types of meals if I was going to keep this up through my run training.

This is the year I really fine tune all those things outside of the actual running that make running successful. Healthy eating and getting to your best race weight are so important in the PR equation. I may not be doing any of the Big Marathons this year, but I’m still working hard towards them!

Also… when I read the “Thanks” section of the Party Grub book, these guys seemed so genuine and nice, it made me really glad to have bought their books. Definitely check them out if you get a chance!

How have you changed your diet for running? What is your favorite post-long run food treat?